Selective call radio receivers such as pagers are used to alert a user of a message. Such devices generally incorporate an audio or visual alert which may be detected by the user. The audio alert is undesirable in a number of situations where the presence or absence of environmental noise is a consideration, therefore, the visual alert may be more desirable. There are several conventional forms of visual alerts. Typically, an LED or lamp will illuminate a control button, the display area (e.g., liquid crystal display) or both. The user may then activate one or more control buttons to read and/or manipulate the received message. Viewing the visual alert and the respective control buttons has become increasingly more difficult as pagers have tended to become more miniaturized due to the advances in electronics. In contrast, the number of functions on today's pagers has tended to increase. This results in pagers being much smaller than they have been in the past while becoming increasingly complicated to operate due to the increased functions. The user may have difficulty using the selective call receiver having the smaller controls placed in closer proximity. In addition, it is not unusual for the user to be expected to activate a sequence of control buttons to achieve the desired function. Because of this, the user may become confused as to which button or sequence of buttons is necessary to produce the desired function. It would then be desirable to provide a larger visual alert, which is separate from the control buttons.
Thus, a need exists for alight channel providing a visual alert incorporated on a selective call receiver to maximize visibility.